Ludvik Svoboda

Ludvik Svoboda (25 November 1895-20 September 1979) was President of Czechoslovakia from 30 March 1968 to 28 May 1975, succeeding Antonin Novotny and preceding Gustav Husak.

Biography
Ludvik Svoboda was born in Hroznatin, Moravia, Austria-Hungary in 1895. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, and remained in the new Czechoslovakian army in 1919. A communist since the 1930s, in 1939 he escaped German occupation by going to the Soviet Union, where he took over command of the Czech Army Group which in 1945 liberated Prague. He became Minister of Defense in the new government, but fell victim to the Stalinist purges of 1950, when he was dismissed, expelled from the party, and imprisoned. After Joseph Stalin's death he was released, and soon became commander of a military academy. He retired in 1959, but was later appointed by Alexander Dubcek to succeed Antonin Novotny as President. Initially opposed to the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968, he quickly adapted himself to Gustav Husak's new hardline regime. Husak forced Svoboda to retire in 1975, and he died in 1979.